


Place Your Hand on My Beating Heart

by louisandharrys



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, High School, M/M, harryandlouis, i hope this is cute or something, louisandharry, sorry if it's ugly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-26
Updated: 2014-06-26
Packaged: 2018-02-06 06:17:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1847512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/louisandharrys/pseuds/louisandharrys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Highschool au where Louis is a loner and Harry likes Louis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Place Your Hand on My Beating Heart

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've ever uploaded on here. My apologies. Also, the title is from Ed Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud" from his new album, X.

Louis Tomlinson is sixteen, short and tan and studying half the time, sleeping the other half, or maybe just wishing he’s asleep while he stares at his ceiling through the dark and cries, or at least thinks he might cry. In other words, Louis has a pretty simple life that has its once in a while twists and turns, like, what he’s having for dinner tonight: leftovers or a microwaved meal? Needless to say, it messes him up considerably when his twists and turns are no longer differences between leftovers and frozen dinners, crying and sleeping.  
  
“What’s wrong, honey?” his mother asks one morning and Louis looks up from his bowl of cereal, confused and maybe a bit sleepy still, because last night he opted for more crying and less sleeping. “Are you feeling sick?”  
  
“No, why do you ask?” he replies, sigh escaping his pink lips as he stands. Only half of his cereal has been eaten; the rest is just soaking in the milk and waiting to be dumped in the trash.  
  
His mum frowns, rustles her hair a bit and then shakes her head so she can finish packing up her son’s lunch. “Hurry up and get ready for school,” she says dismissively, so Louis does just that—runs upstairs, gets dressed, brushes his teeth, pulls his messenger bag over his shoulder, runs downstairs again.  
  
“Bye,” he says, kissing his mum’s cheek and grabbing his lunch before heading out the door so he can drive—yes, drive (it’s all very exciting)—to school for another excruciatingly long day full of boring teachers and annoying peers and a really lonely lunch period spent in the auditorium.  
  
Except, today is different, because today, a tall boy with curly hair is sitting in the fourth seat from the back and three from the left side of the room when Louis walks into his maths class, and naturally, since that’s where he sits every day, he’s sort of upset. It doesn’t really help that said curly boy is sitting there, laughing at something his friend has said and folding his hands behind his head as he gets comfortable, right in the seat that Louis has had to himself all _year_.  
  
“Excuse me,” he says, bothered, “do you mind?”  
  
“What’s wrong, princess? Someone piss in your cereal today?” the boy retorts, and Louis thinks he has just had it, so he lets his messenger bag, which is full of binders and books and papers and pencils and pens, fall to the floor.  
  
He puts his hands on his hips, jaw set, and then, by some near miracle, Louis finds it in himself to explain, “This is _my_ seat. I’ve been sitting here all year, and now you’re in it. Please go away. Really, like, please go away.”  
  
The curly boy laughs. He laughs right in Louis’ sad little face and stands up. “Relax, doll,” he says, and Louis doesn’t think he likes that nickname, but Harry continues on like it’s nothing special, “I was just on my way to class. Only stopped by for a chat. See you around.”  
  
Louis is relieved when the boy walks by him, until his hair is tousled up by the curly-haired devil and his life might as well be in pieces.  
  
“Harry, by the way,” he winks, and then Louis sits down in his seat and, huffily, tries to fix his hair as the bell rings and the rest of his classmates file into the room.  
  
***  
  
Louis sits alone at lunch every day in the auditorium because no one ever goes there at noon and he only takes ten or so minutes to eat, so after that he can just sit around and finish some work or maybe read a book or maybe even study a bit. But today, it’s like the curly devil named Harry is out to get him or something, because Louis gets into the auditorium and some boys are lined up along the side of the stage, sitting with their legs hanging off and swinging back and forth.  
  
Of course, Louis is just about to turn around and find an empty classroom, or maybe just wander around the halls until the next bell rings, but then he swears his whole face goes red when he hears, “Hey, doll. You following me or something?”  
  
He sighs, loudly, and trudges down past rows and rows of seats until he’s standing right in front of the large stage. “No,” he says, “I’m not. Are you? I eat here, like, every single day.”  
  
“Waiting up for me, then?”  
  
“Are you just trying to bother me? It’s working,” Louis adds, irritated. His arms are crossed over his chest and he thinks he probably looks like a very stern mother after her child has had too many sweets before bed.  
  
Harry laughs, and then so do his friends, and Louis feels so self-conscious and begins to focus on little things to keep himself distracted.  
  
“No, I’m flirting. Haven’t you heard of it, princess?”  
  
“You’re a creep,” Louis decides.  
  
Harry scoffs, glances at his friends (who aren’t even paying attention). “And a cute one, at that. Have you seen my smile?”  
  
That’s it for Louis, because this kid just won’t give up, and so he just makes his way up the steps and onto the stage and he sits towards the back, just in the wings so the black velvet curtains fall in front of him. He opens up his lunch and starts to eat, and when he has a mouth full of peanut butter and jelly, Harry plops down beside him.  
  
Louis wants to ask him to leave him alone, but he really can’t, so he just groans and scoots around so that his back is facing Harry. That doesn’t sit right with Harry, though, and he pokes Louis in the back with his finger.  
  
That’s quite annoying.  
  
He’s finished chewing by now, so Louis says, “What do you want? Please go away. I don’t want to talk to you. You bother me.”  
  
“Why’s that?”  
  
“Because you keep showing up and pushing my buttons and I’d love to just, like, continue on with my day.”  
  
Harry laughs again, which is irritating, but it’s kind of a beautiful sound and Louis ends up frowning a bit less than he was at first. “Well, I would love to push all of your buttons.”  
  
“Is that supposed to be sexual?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“I’m eating lunch.”  
  
“So, after lunch?”  
  
“No,” Louis says, so Harry laughs again and stands up.  
  
“I'll see you around, doll,” he chuckles before going back to his friends.  
  
Louis stares at black velvet curtains for the next ten or so minutes, and then reads about anatomy and tries to drown out the obnoxious voices of the boys sitting just a short ways away from him. It almost works, but he can still hear that loud, annoying, booming laugh from the curly devil himself, and maybe Louis is just okay with that.

***

After school, Louis has to shove all of his unnecessary books into his locker and all his necessary books into his bag. When he’s done with that, though, he swears he’s going crazy, because he knows his keys were right there in the front pocket of his bag where he always put them, and now they’re not there.

“Damn it,” he curses under his breath, hurriedly searching under books and pens and papers for his car keys.

As if Louis isn’t quite stressed out enough, he hears from behind him, “Whoa, watch the language, doll.”

“You have them, don’t you?” he demands; after all, it’s only logical that this stupid, overly confident _shmuck_ would have taken his keys.

Much to Louis’ dismay (at least, he thinks that’s what it is), Harry looks just as confused as Louis was but a moment ago. His full lips stretch into an unpleasant frown, the first one Louis has seen him wear. (Then again, Louis has only really seen him three times in his life.)

“What do I have?”

“Nothing. Are you stalking me?”

Harry shrugs.

“Will you at least make yourself useful, then, and help me find my keys?”

That’s got Harry’s attention, now, and he offers, “Why don’t I just take you home?” When Louis laughs at him, he instead decides to aid in the search.

Finally, Louis discovers them at the bottom of his bag and straightens up triumphantly. “Look at that,” he says proudly, “did it all by myself.”

God, if that’s not the cutest thing Harry has ever heard. He grins brightly, not quite sure why his chest is now ready to burst while his eyes roam over Louis—his prideful smile, his bright eyes, his red cheeks, his slender fingers holding his keys tightly. He’s not sure exactly _what_ he feels, but it’s something beautiful and rather fantastic, really, and he wants to feel this forever.

“Can I at least walk you to your car?” Harry asks, but he’s not really cocky or anything now, just sort of dazzled by Louis, and really, who wouldn’t be?

Louis hesitates, then nods his head up and down. His hair falls in his face and he brushes it away with the hand that isn’t clinging to his keys. Harry shoves his hands in his pockets, Louis closes his locker, and then they walk together out to the parking lot. Louis isn’t sure why Harry is walking him, anyway, but he just goes with it, because even if he’s a self-proclaimed cute creep, Louis thinks this might be his only shot at having a friend.

Then again, maybe that goes away when they get to his car and Harry says, “Are you gay?”

Louis doesn’t actually know what to say. If he says yes, then he’ll no longer have even a maybe friend, but if he says no, he’ll be a dumb liar and a useless wannabe. Harry takes the silence and then sighs, loudly, and shakes his head.

“Sorry for asking,” he mutters. “You haven’t got to answer. I dunno why I asked that.”

“Is it cos I act gay?”

“What? No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to, like, assume. Erm. Right.” Harry nods and turns to walk the other way, but not before Louis can catch his embarrassed grimace, so he clears his throat, and thankfully, Harry turns around again. “Yeah?”

“I am, by the way. I just hope that doesn’t, like, bother you or something.”

Harry just smiles, nods, and turns around to keep walking. While Louis is driving home, all he really sees is that smile, and he wonders exactly what’s happened, and maybe, just maybe he hopes that tomorrow when he walks into maths, his seat will be taken again by a kid who laughs too loudly and, as a matter of fact, does _not_ steal people’s car keys.

***

“Why’d you ask me that?” Louis says one day. Harry has walked him out to his car again, which seems to be a new routine that neither of them really have to question. It just sort of happened.

“What?”

Louis sighs, turns around to lean against his car door so he can look up at Harry. “Last week, I mean. Why did you ask me that?”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about,” Harry informs him with a soft, almost cautious laugh. “What did I ask you?”

“You asked if I’m gay. And you never answered me when I told you.”

Harry nods once. He was expecting Louis to ask this sooner, but now he’s just sort of glad Louis brought it up. “I guess,” he says, “it’s because I was, err, being flirtatious and all. And I didn’t know if you were uncomfortable because you liked me or uncomfortable because you didn’t like me. Or, more specifically, my kind.”

“Your kind?”

“Boys.”

“I’m a boy.”

“Well, you know.”

And yeah, Louis knows, so he just shoves his hands in his pockets and looks around for a minute, and Harry does the same, until by some ridiculously odd coincidence, they both straighten up at the same time and mutter something about having to go. Weird, Louis thinks, but he doesn’t mind it, so he shoots Harry a smile and turns around to unlock his car.

Now that his back is facing Harry, it’s considerably easier to say, “For the record, you were right with the first one.”

“The first one?”

“The first reason, why I might be uncomfortable. You were right.”

Harry takes a second to figure out what Louis means by that, but by the time he does, Louis is in his car, and Harry wants to knock on the window until Louis rolls it down, but instead he just watches Louis drive off and makes his way back through the parking lot to catch a ride home with one of his friends.

***

“So, you really don’t mind?” Louis asks hopefully. His legs are hanging over the edge of the stage, and so are Harry’s, but Harry’s legs reach down so far past Louis’ that it really isn’t quite fair. He’s swinging his legs back and forth so that his heels hit the side of the stage, and so is Harry; it’s sort of funny to Louis that just a couple of weeks ago he was angered just at the sight of Harry sitting here. Now that they’re alone, though, it isn’t so bad.

“No, doll, I’m telling you,” Harry insists. That name doesn’t bother him anymore, though, so Louis just looks up to see Harry looking back at him earnestly. “It’s not like I like sitting with them, anyway. All they talk about is, you know.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Well, just, boring shit.”

Louis nods. He thinks he probably does that too; besides, what could be more boring than discussing the ways in which Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality relates to high school? But Harry doesn’t really seem to mind when Louis rambles, and Louis kind of likes to have someone who listens to him for once. (His half-sisters are too young, so they normally just yell at him and beg to hear a “nice” story, while his mum is too busy to even try comprehending what he’s saying most of the time.)

Maybe Harry’s other friends were even more boring than Louis, though, or so he hopes, and he just looks around the empty auditorium, startled by the hugeness of it all, and how small they are in this one room, let alone on the planet, even in the universe.

“Hey,” Harry says, and he nudges Louis’ knee with his own, frown settled deep on his face. “Did you hear me? Where’d you go?”

Louis hums, tries to look up again, and eventually he does—he meets Harry’s eyes for a moment and then sighs so hugely that his whole body seems to relax afterwards. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“We’re so small,” Louis answers, and Harry snorts.

“Well, _you_ are,” he retorts, earning an annoyed scowl from Louis, whose arms are now crossed over his chest.

He huffs and puffs for a minute and finally says, “You know what I mean. In the scheme of things, like. We’re so small, Harry. Don’t you ever think about that? Nothing really matters at all.”

“So it doesn’t matter—nothing we do actually matters? That’s what you’re trying to tell me?”

Louis nods a bit, eyes closed, and sighs again, “I guess we can, like, do things to make our existences meaningful to someone, but, well, think about it. Those people are small, too, and we’re all just little. So I guess none of this matters.”

“Okay,” Harry says.

Louis smiles, but his eyes are still closed, and they fly open when soft lips find his own. He quickly closes them again, though, and just lets his hand come up to rest on Harry’s cheek. They’re like that for a moment before Harry pulls away, smiling bigger than Louis has ever seen (and blushing, too, but so is Louis).

“Harry?”

“Well, since we’re all so small, I didn’t think it’d matter one way or the other.”

Louis smiles again and rests his hands on the stage behind him to support him as he leans back and looks up at the ceiling, where unlit spotlights are hanging.

“You know why I eat here?” Louis asks, voice curious and soft and not really trying to prove much.

“Why?”

“Because, I love the stage. And this is the only way I’m ever going to be up here.”

Harry stands up and walks around the stage a bit, like he’s testing it, and Louis doesn’t watch him, just keeps staring at those unlit spotlights. The room is so empty, so silent besides Louis’ heart beating against his ribs and Harry’s footsteps against the stage. It’s a comfortable kind of silence, and neither of them wants to break it, but eventually, Harry does, because he’s finished walking around and he’s sitting beside Louis again.

He looks over at Louis curiously, frowns, looks away. “Why don’t you join the drama class?”

“I can’t be on stage. Stage fright. Unless I’m, like, eating on one. Not in front of an audience, though.”

They don’t speak for a while, because it’s not like they need to say anything, and then Louis is standing up, throwing away the trash from his lunch, and sighing loudly enough for Harry to hear. So, Harry stands up, too, and follows Louis’ lead by making his way towards the back of the auditorium. Louis is about to leave so he can stop by his locker before class, but he’s stopped when strong arms snake around his waist.

“Harry,” he begins, but Harry is kissing him again, and he doesn’t want it to stop, so he holds the taller boy’s face in both hands and just goes with it. He’s on his tippy-toes, and Harry has both hands on both of Louis’ hips, but they’re comfortable and it’s just quiet besides their breathing, which is in sync when Louis pulls away.

“Have a good class,” Harry says, and so they go their separate ways and Louis realizes he’s been kissed twice in one day by someone who’s not his mum or great-aunt.

And that’s sort of fantastic; at least, he rather thinks so.

***

Louis makes a friend the same week that he gets kissed for the first time (and the second time). His name is Liam, and they meet when Louis accidentally spills water all over himself in class and Liam is in the bathroom when Louis happens to be trying frantically to dry off. Liam swaps shirts with him, mostly out of pity, and after that, Louis starts seeing him around everywhere. In the parking lot after school that day, Liam asks Louis for his shirt back, and so he gives it back and takes his own, and Liam mentions needing to study for an exam, and Louis offers to help, and that’s that.

Really, what it comes down to is that Liam doesn’t hate Louis and Louis thinks Liam is really cool. One day, when they’re supposed to be studying for an exam at Liam’s house, Louis tells him about Harry.

“I know him,” Liam says, after patiently sitting through Louis going on about this kid for quite possibly hours. “I have a class with him. He’s sort of annoying.”

“That’s what I thought, too! But he’s really not,” insists Louis, whose eyes are wandering around the room as he tries to sort out his thoughts.

“Well, are you guys a _thing_?”

Louis answers, “No,” but quickly adds, “I don’t think so. We haven’t talked since that day. I mean, maybe he doesn’t like me or something. It’s kind of dumb, anyway. Forget it.”

Then, Liam says something that most likely changes Louis’ entire _life,_ because otherwise he would’ve gone on deciding whether to cry or sleep, to have leftovers or a microwave dinner. But instead, thanks to the blessed creature sitting in front of Louis, his life veers off its mundane course and finds a more exciting path filled with obnoxious laughter and pretty green eyes.

“Maybe he’s waiting for you to talk to him first,” is what Liam says, and that changes everything, because Louis had never thought of that before—never. And thank God for Liam, because Louis thinks he’ll opt for more sleeping tonight.

***

The next day is horrible. Harry is sitting at a table with his friends, and Louis knows he has to talk to him, but he’s terrified to go talk to him while he’s sitting with those people, so Liam kind of forces him to, and he gets up, hands shaking. He’s never eaten in the cafeteria before—well, technically still hasn’t, because his lunch is sitting abandoned in his locker—and now he has to weave his way through tables and people and trashcans just to get to Harry’s table.

“What?” asks one of Harry’s friends, sounding more amused than anything. Louis doesn’t know who he is, but Harry looks uncomfortable, and Louis just looks at him for a minute before continuing through tables and around people and past trashcans just so he can get _out_ of that stupid, noisy, crowded lunch room.

“Thought I’d find you here,” Louis is surprised to hear just moments after he’s settled behind the wings. Harry can still see him from where he’s standing, and Louis gulps.

“Sorry for embarrassing you,” he calls softly.

Harry makes his way up the steps on the side of the stage and sits across from Louis so that his back is poking out from behind the curtain and Louis is looking straight up at him.

“You didn’t embarrass me,” Harry says, but his voice is quiet and gentle now that he’s this close (and hell if he’s not _close_ to Louis), and he really just wants to sweep Louis up and apologize for everything. “Before you say anything, err, I’m sorry about not hanging out with you the past few days. Just, my friends were…” He trails off uncomfortably, so Louis sighs.

“I get it.”

That’s all he says because that’s all he needs to say: Harry nods at him, and then Louis nods back, and they sit in their normal silence again.

“I really miss you talking about your, erm, psychology shit,” Harry says after a while. Louis wants to laugh, but he just groans and stands up.

“Where you going, doll?” whines Harry, so of course Louis smiles bigger than he probably ever has, and he sits on the edge of the stage, legs dangling over the side like usual.

It’s no surprise when Harry sits beside him, and everything feels alright for now.

***

“Harry?” Louis asks one night. They’ve stayed up late and ended up resting back on Louis’ bed, books scattered on the floor, legs tangled together, eyes closed, hearts content.

He looks down at Louis and kisses the boy’s temple, and that’s enough encouragement to go on, because by now, their mutual silence is worth a thousand words; more often than not, they can read each other like a good book on a rainy Saturday afternoon in the late spring.

“I think we should walk in on Monday holding hands. There’s not a damn thing anyone can do about it.”

“Oh, Lou,” comes the soft reply through the almost darkness, “I wish.”

***

They’re eating in the auditorium one day, and it’s a rather typical day, actually, except Louis got up a few minutes before his alarm went off this morning, and Harry took a test in one of his classes.

“Louis,” says Harry, “remember all that stuff you said, about how we’re all small? Nothing matters and all that?”

Louis shrugs his shoulders a little and looks up at Harry as if to ask where exactly he’s going with this. So, Harry answers him.

“I was just thinking, how you said that we can only really affect the lives of other people, but they’re small too. And I guess I just thought, well, erm, if I’ve got to affect anyone, I’d like it to be you. And if I’ve got to be meaningful to someone, I hope I can be meaningful to you. Because, listen,” and he takes Louis’ hand, which is shaking now, but that’s not the point, “you’re meaningful to me, okay?”

Louis nods. “Okay,” he says, but that isn’t good enough, clearly, because Harry is shaking his head and squeezing his eyes tightly closed.

“Listen to me, please. You… You mean a fucking lot to me, yeah? So just, don’t change, okay?”

This time, Louis ducks his head and nods again, quickly, but he doesn’t want Harry to see the red in his cheeks or the tears in his eyes.

“I never had any friends,” he confides in Harry out of the blue. He’s sure Harry already knew that, but he has to say it. “I thought you would be my friend, but you’re not. You’re—Christ, you’re just so much more than that.”

Harry embraces him, then, wraps him up so tightly that he can hardly breathe anymore, but Louis doesn’t want to breathe, really, because they’re small and nothing matters. But if he has to not breathe, he’d like it to be because someone loves him too much to let him go. And that someone is Harry, so Louis knows there’s no possible way he could be more content than he is right now.

**Author's Note:**

> Hii, I hope this was worth reading. If you want to reach me on twitter, it's @twitcampayno. Thanks again for reading!


End file.
